The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling the production of composite images based on consumer imagery, background image templates, order source, and fulfillment mechanism. Such a method provides security to the consumer, template owner, and production company.
Composite images are created by combining images from different sources into one final result. The images may be combined for artistic, informational, or emotional reasons, and result in a single image with more value than its component parts. This composite image may be written onto a variety of media such as photographic paper, photographic transparency film, thermal paper, transfer media for transferring the composite image to an article, such as a T-shirt or coffee mug, etc. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,459,819, issued Oct. 17, 1995 to Watkins et al. The image sources are highly variable; some may be professionally designed and subject to copyright restrictions or royalty payment, others may be in the public domain, while others may be based on personal images that may not be accessible to the public. Each of these image components, and the final composite image, has different security needs. Moreover, the professional image owners"" need to maximize their commercial return by widely distributing their imagery to a variety of producers, only compounds the complexity of the situation.
Copyright control of artistic works is a critical part of the value of that work. Digital systems that manipulate or otherwise utilize digitized artworks must support this copyright control. Likewise, consumers who submit personal images for production by others have an expectation of privacy for those images. The composite images may be owned by yet another party and may contain licensed properties (characters, logos, names etc.). In any case, systems which legitimately maintain such images have an obligation to secure those images from unauthorized reproduction.
Thus, composite image creation systems based on the reproduction of copyrighted imagery combined with personal imagery must prevent unauthorized production. Since the sources of the imagery may be diverse, and legitimate production is possible in many ways, maintaining appropriate control of production can be difficult. This is compounded by the need for a production system to maintain a library of images together with compositing instructions, each of which may have different restrictions associated with it and whose restrictions may vary over time and with the particular producer.
Two areas in which security is also important are the transmission of image information and access to that information. The first is dealt with by encryption of the image data while the second area can be addressed with traditional computer system security measures. Neither of these areas is addressed by the present invention.
When creating composite images, the sources may be freely available, available for a cost, or restricted to particular circumstances or users. In the first case, no special security is needed. In the second case, a production system has the obligation to verify that the system has the right to produce a product and to make any appropriate royalty payments. In the third case, the use of the image may be restricted for some products, but not for others. For example, the author of a professional image may want to restrict the image from being reproduced on a particular medium, such as a T-shirt, or to restrict the reproduction to a particular time period, such as during a holiday season. There may also be a need to restrict the use of an image to particular image production systems.
Artistic works are typically licensed for use on a royalty basis and may be licensed to a variety of production systems with different access restrictions. The licensing or production of artistic works can vary depending on the artist, the work, the business utilizing the art work, the end consumer, the date, and the subject, among other criteria. Maintaining a strict control of production can become very complex. Moreover, the reproduction of these composite images is unfortunately subject to fraud.
Likewise, the use of personal images must be limited to products incorporating those images approved by the person himself. Any production system must maintain controls so that other systems or other persons may not utilize those images.
It is the object of this invention to provide a method for controlling the use of artistic and personal images in composite imagery in a manner that is very flexible, is useful over a wide distribution to diverse producers, inhibits fraud, and can adapt to a variety of circumstances without compromising the secure use of the imagery.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above. Briefly summarized, a system for producing composite images, includes: a digital image file containing a personal image and image control data related to the personal image; a digital image file containing an image template and image template control data related to the image template; a file containing composite image construction rules and composite control data related to the image construction rules; and an image production system including, a production rule data file, a control module for: receiving a customer order including customer order control data; retrieving the image control data, the image template control data, the composite control data and the production rule data; and generating an ENABLE/DISABLE control signal, and a composite image production module responsive to the ENABLE/DISABLE control signal for employing the personal image, the image template, and the construction rules to produce the composite image.
These and other aspects, objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood and appreciated from a review of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and appended claims, and by reference to the accompanying drawings.